I say it was grafitti, but what was on the wall actually appeared to be elegant handwriting. There was so much of it, I couldn't comprehend how someone could have gotten away with spray painting it. None of it had been there the day before. Surely thousands of people must have witnessed whoever did it, I thought. Had there been no state patrol car among them?
As traffic crept along, I had plenty of opportunity to read the handwriting on the wall. And this is what it said:
My children:
It has been a long time since I have spoken to you as a group. In many ways, I prefer to deal with you on a one-to-one basis. It's so much more personal. But every so often, I get the urge to make these more general pronouncements.
It has come to my attention that a number of my children have used some of my previous general pronouncements as justification to persecute others of my children. Perhaps it is this centuries-old practice that has lately made me more hesitant to speak than I used to be, but it is also clear that my silence has been mistaken for tacit agreement.
It is also possible, as some of you have pointed out, that silence equals death.
Which brings me to the matter at hand. Many times have I heard well-meaning children of mine defend their bigotry by saying, "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." These children state this presuming unto themselves my authority, but I must point out that they were not there during the Creation.
I was.
When one relies on generation after generation of human beings to relay one's Word from each to the next, through oral tradition, linguistic translation and cultural evolution, it is not surprising that here and there a date will be wrong, the order of events will get switched, and some details are forgotten.
It is true that I created Adam and Eve.
But first, I created Gabe and Mike.
I have no favorites among my children, but Gabe and Mike were a wonderful couple. All that I had made I had made for them; all the heavens above and the earth below, the beasts of the field and the plants of the garden, everything around them and everything between them. They showed their gratitude for these gifts throughout a lifetime of profound, joyful love for me, for each other, and for all my creation.
All this was exactly what I had hoped for, and I asked of them nothing more. As time passed, they grew in wisdom, and knew that their time on the earth would one day come to an end. It was then that they resolved to present me with a lasting, living memorial of their thankfulness.
In the center of the garden, they planted a fruit tree. In their waning days on the earth, they tended it and nurtured it until it could survive on its own.
And when I had gathered Gabriel and Michael unto myself, I created Eve and Adam, and gave to them all of creation -- everything except for the one thing which Gabe and Mike had given to me: the tree in the center of the garden.
To tell the story any further would unnecessarily resurrect old and forgiven grievances. My children are given many gifts: some are shared; some are unique; all are special. It is how each one celebrates those gifts, and how each one develops a respect for the gifts of others, that makes all the difference in this, your world.
Love,
I AM WHO I AM
By the time I was driving home again in the evening, the highway crew had been hard at work scrubbing the walls clean. By the next morning, there was not a trace of it left.
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